Employment Law Video Reference Library

Rudner Law practices exclusively in the area of Canadian Employment Law. Although our office is in Ontario, we advise clients with employees across the country. The information provided on this website and on our social media platforms is based upon the laws in Canada. We do note that there are some variations in legislation between provinces, and encourage you to ensure that the information you obtain relates to your situation. None of the information we provide is intended to replace legal advice.

Passmore and Illumiti Inc., which was released in November of last year, and is helpful for both employers and employees as it reviews the types of remedies that may be available through the tribunal, as well as how damages are assessed.

If the employee is entitled to reasonable notice under the common law, then the employee has a duty to mitigate their damages, which means that they have a duty to take reasonable steps to find comparable employment.

The most common requirements for an employee to be eligible for severance pay is that the employer must have a payroll of at least $2.5 million, and the employee must have been employed for at least 5 years.

We are dealing with investigations more and more often in the context of employment or HR law, and the reality is, as we often tell our employer clients, you cannot impose discipline, especially dismissal, until you investigate.

The question that I ask today, and I will answer today, is whether, despite having that full and final release, a claim can be brought. And the simple answer is yes, there are circumstances where courts will allow someone to bring a claim even after they signed a full and final release.

In this case, I want to talk about the case of Ocean Nutrition Canada v. Matthews, which comes out of Nova Scotia, and this deals with the types of damages an employee is entitled to in a wrongful dismissal claim.

Usually when we talk about damages for wrongful dismissal, we look at the number of months, we try to calculate what a month is worth and we take into account salary, bonuses, commission, benefits, car allowance, pension, etc. And when we negotiate a settlement, we might throw in a token amount for the cost of finding new work, but that's usually an afterthought.

Our human rights legislation is very clear: you cannot discriminate on the basis of citizenship or country of origin, so you should never have a field on your application form that asks where they're from, you should never be asking whether they are Canadian citizens, and you should never ask that in the hiring process at all.

Passmore and Illumiti Inc., which was released in November of last year, and is helpful for both employers and employees as it reviews the types of remedies that may be available through the tribunal, as well as how damages are assessed.

Employers don't have to condone recreational cannabis usage at work, and they can put policies in place to prevent employees from working while high. But, for employees who use cannabis for medicinal purposes, because of a disability, or because of addiction, which also classifies as a disability, employers do have to accommodate to the point of unreasonable hardship.

Prior to January 1st, 2018, employers with 50 or more employees were obligated to provide employees with ten unpaid “Personal Emergency” days. Bill 148 eliminated the 50 employee threshold, and introduced a new requirement that the first two days of the ten-day entitlement be paid.